Bloomberg’s Lisa Lerer reports that 64 percent of likely voters surveyed agreed with Obama’s decision to end the deportations of some illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, and 30 percent said they disagreed. Independents backed the decision by an even wider margin.

“At first I was really against it, but after sitting down and thinking about it, a lot of kids here are good kids,” Loretta Price, 65, a retiree and undecided independent voter from Ocala, Florida, said in a follow-up interview. “I think it was the right thing to do.”

Obama’s campaign is counting on the policy change to bolster support among Hispanic voters in a tight race where most polls have him in a statistical dead heat with opponent Mitt Romney. Obama won the Hispanic vote 67 to 31 percent over Republican John McCain in 2008, according to exit polls.